DIY-Whisky Part II

With our 200L of wort that had fermented nicely, we made our way to a local farm distillery. He had never distilled whisky before but seemed quite exited to try. Obviously he had no clue to where to make the cuts and at what temperature the still had to be set at. Also, he had never heard of the concept of double distilling. I had jotted down all the information I got at the destilleries we visited and some info I collected from the web. The first run went exactly as planned with the spirit having an acohol content of ~25 % vol. It wasn’t until the second run when things got a little odd. Usually the forshots come in at the highest strengh (~80% vol.) and then there is a gradual drop until you cut off the faints at around 50% vol. The first bit coming out of the still was just a little over 58% vol. and the final output was around 51% vol. Even the destiller had never seen that happen before and could not make any sense of it. So in the end we filled the barrel with newmake of 53% vol. We had purchased a 10L barrel rebuilt from an ex-bourbon cask. The cooper did an amazing job, the only problem is that we can not age it any longer than a year in the baby-barrel. There is just to much contact with the wood and the whisky would taste gross. So after all, we will not hold our own Whisky in hands but merely a Spirit, since it will not have aged the necessary three years in an oak cask. Not really a big deal, since the goal was to go through the process of making Whisky and that we did. Our cask is now resting in my cellar and we have sampled it twice now. The color has darkened significantly but the destillate is very young (obviously;) As soon as we decide to bottle the spirit I will publish some tasting notes. If I’m lucky I will find something to compare it to (possibly it would be better not to find something too similar…if you know what I mean).

I highly recommend trying this at home! You will be rewarded with insight that very few people have been able to experience. Make sure to check legal recuirements in your country of residence. Have fun!